“I feel very confident and more aware of what to do if there is a difficult behaviour.”
Toby, foster carer and Fostering Changes course participant
The Fostering Changes programme is for caregivers of foster children. It is designed to help caregivers increase placement stability and improve positive outcomes for children and young people. This course teaches a range of skills to caregivers to help them reduce challenging behaviours and increase attachment, thereby reducing the likelihood of placement breakdown.
The current statistics demonstrate a bleak outlook for children in care in New Zealand. Evidence-based programmes such as Fostering Changes have demonstrated that with researched intervention and caregiver support children and young people can have a better start to life.
To date there have been a number of Fostering Changes groups run within NZ and it has been adopted as a running programme within several fostering providers. Incredible Families is committed to supporting our own facilitators, as well as developing positive relationships with other organisations running Fostering Changes. Currently we are in conversation with local non-government organisations and support groups around the possibility of developing further groups. Local information indicates a growing need for such programmes. We would hope that more groups will be provided to local caregivers – including kinship carers, foster carers and adopters.
We would like to acknowledge the Fostering Changes team based at Kings College London for their ongoing support. We benefit enormously from our close links with the team. They continue to supervise, provide advice around implementation and service delivery. Without their support we would be unable to continue to provide Fostering Changes.
Fostering Futures offer a range of foster care programmes. These parenting programmes for caregivers are evidenced- based programmes are designed to help caregivers increase placement stability and improve positive outcomes for children and young people. The courses below teach a range of skills to reduce challenging behaviours, increase attachment, develop resilience and understand the child in their care.
- Fostering Changes
Skills for caregivers to reduce challenging behaviours - Relational Learning Framework
Tailored approaches for families - The Resilience Doughnut
Support services for ACC clients
For more information on these courses, please visit Fostering Futures or contact Abi Simmonds fosteringfuturesnz@gmail.com.